What are the qualities of Jared Carter that made you want to tell his story?
What I like most about Jared Carter is this: While he isn’t necessarily the strongest or smartest guy, even among his own crew, he has a large capacity for growth. He learns, and he works hard, and he doesn’t quit.
He’s a leader, not because he’s exceptionally charismatic, but because he makes the effort to connect with people, and while he does make mistakes, he learns from them. In short, he’s an everyman who is greater than sum of his parts.
Alongside the Chronicles of Sarco, you’ve also written a companion series of short stories. How do the Tales of Sarco fit into the bigger picture?
To understand that, I should take a moment to trace how those stories came to be. In the months prior to the release of the first Sarco novel, Edge of Oblivion, the marketing guru for Enclave at the time suggested I put together a free short story to help create a little buzz for the book.
It sounded sort of interesting, so I scripted out something based on some ideas that had played in the back of my mind.
But after I wrote the first story, I decided I wasn’t quite done—and the stories took on a life of their own. Together, they compose a story arc of their own, but also one very much tied to the larger Chronicles of Sarco storyline.
The characters from Tales occasionally cross paths with the people and events of the novels. They also unearth things which more fully explain why the things in the novels are happening as they are.
The payoff is that there are events alluded to in the novels that are fully explained in the short stories. There are also some Easter eggs in the novels, including a couple of notable ones in Through Chaos, that pay homage to the stories.
Science fiction used to be an “insider” club for fans, but in the past decade or so has now become the mainstream. Does that make your job as an SF author easier or harder?
I think it’s easier, and I say that as someone who grew up watching Star Trek when that was sort of a nerdy thing to do. I personally think that, on balance, the mainstreaming of science fiction has allowed for the larger population to experience these captivating stories that, for so long, were seen as only for a small group of social misfits.
Maybe for some purists it feels like something lost, but I really love the way the storytelling has continued to shine even as sci-fi has gotten more popular.
As an author, it means that there are more potential readers out there who have exposure to the kinds of worlds I build, and that’s awesome.
Click through to learn about Joshua’s surprising side project–and how it helps him write his fiction…